Return to the Frank Passic
Any photos not otherwise credited are from the personal collection of Frank Passic, Albion Historian.
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Morning Star, October 16, 2005, pg. 3 Copies of my recent Riverside Cemetery tour (as well as those from previous years) are now available from yours truly, or at the Albion Chamber of Commerce. These are filled with Albion history stories and make great extra gifts for special occasions and holidays. Is your set complete? With all the news about hurricane Katrina recently, many organizations and individuals have given aid to help those who were affected by this devastating storm. Donations have come in the form of money, or supplies such as food and clothing, and volunteers who traveled to the area to help first-hand. In Albion’s history, our citizens have pulled together at various times to help meet special needs that they were made aware of. Sometime in late 1953, the American Magazine published an article which featured a picture of Mrs. Marion Palmer of 319 Irwin Avenue, whose husband John worked in the sales department at the Albion Malleable Iron Company. The topic was about the “Zoo Zoo Stables” which Marion, and Mary (Mrs. Collins) Carter had started that fall. One copy of the magazine found its way to Greece, a country which at the time was still recovering from the ravages of World War II and a Communist Civil War. There a Greek housewife named Eugenia Samiotu in the city of Salonika (located in northern Greece) read the article in January, 1954. She subsequently wrote Mrs. Palmer in care of the local St. James Episcopal Church. Mrs. Samiotu wrote that she was the mother of three children: two girls ages 5 and 8, and one son who was 12 years old. They had moved to Salonika as refugees. Her husband was only occasionally employed, due to the economic conditions in Greece at the time. Mrs. Samiotu wrote, “Unfortunately what he manages to make is sometimes not enough even for our poor daily food, because prices are high and life is hard as an outcome of the big damage that the cruel World War II and the atheist Communists have done to our country and ourselves.” Mrs. Samiotu requested that warm clothes be shipped for her children and their friends in order to help them better survive the cold winter. Marion Palmer’s 9-year old daughter Carole Palmer took the letter to her teacher at Dalrymple School, where it was read to her 4th grade class. The class decided to collect used clothing and send it to the Samiotu family. As news spread among the teachers at Dalrymple, the 5th and 6th grade classes joined together in the venture. The clothes were collected and brought to the Palmer barn on Adams St. behind the house, where several large boxes were packaged for shipping on Friday, February 19, 1954. From our this week we present a photograph of the Dalrymple School children who had just packaged the boxes of clothing for shipping. Seated in the front, left to right are: Verna Case, Carole Palmer, Mary Hrab, and Roger Skinner. Center row boys on far right: Dale Bailey and Cecil Wallace. Standing in back left to right are: Robert Dunn, Joseph Robinson, Jacqueline Hall, Linda Vieweg, Kathy Duckworth, David Bartell, and 6th grade teacher Mildred Duckworth. How many of our readers remember this endeavor? 
The Dalrymple School children with the aid boxes Next: PAVLUCHIK GROCERY All text copyright, 2026 © all rights reserved Frank Passic | Artwork copyright Maggie LaNoue © 2026
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